Official: Catholic clergy can’t accept Israel

March 12, 2007 9:00am

The director of Israel’s government press
office accused members of the Catholic clergy of being “unable to
accept the restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Israel” despite the
reconciliation efforts of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Daniel Seaman rejected
recent criticism by Irish and German Catholic delegations to Israel as “appeasement” of Palestinians and an assertion of
Christian dominance in the Holy Land. A German bishop visiting Israel last week compared conditions in Ramallah to the Warsaw ghetto under the
Nazis. And last month Father
Eoin Cassidy, chairman of the International Subcommittee of the Irish
Commission for Justice and Social Affairs, controversially invoked the Holocaust as imposing a moral
imperative on Israelis to treat the Palestinians better. “The humble
Jew is the clearest expression of Christian dominance, but they are unable to
balance a strong Israel with 2,000 years of religious teaching,” Seaman said. Seaman was in Dublin to debate Palestinian Delegate General
Hikmat Ajurri and others on bias in Irish media coverage of the
Israeli-Arab conflict. He said although he understood Irish
sympathy for the “difficult circumstances” of the Palestinians, he thought the Irish
media had a “perception of the conflict that isn’t based in reality.”